This is our first attempt at this. I hope it runs smoothly, but I apologize in advance if it doesn't! Thanks to @navindra for giving me the extra powers needed to run a recital! (But as others noted, we shouldn't call this as recital. It's too formal a word for what this event will hopefully become.)
Here's my own plan of attack:
My blues knowledge is relatively weak, so I'm using this as an opportunity to learn a bit more. Specifically, I'm going to try a New Orleans approach. And very specifically, I'm going to use Dr. John's demonstration of how Professor Longhair would approach Frankie and Johnnie (a tune I learned about from @Nightowl) as my study material for the month. Minus one chord change, Frankie and Johnnie is a 12-bar blues. So my plan is to prepare something simple for the head, and apply my (hopefully) newfound knowledge to do some improv over the blues changes. The lead sheet linked above is in Bb, but the actual blues portion is in Eb, which strikes me as a hard key for learning the kind of blues I'm going to do! I'll probably change the piece to C, so I can improv over F blues.
Going through Frankie and Johnnie, what strikes me is how similar it is to learning Latin rhythms. It's basically the first half of the clave in the left hand, and very little swing, and trying to coordinate left and right hands seems to be the majority of the challenge. Also, Dr. John's improv is quite limited in terms of harmony and hand placement, and it's more like he chooses from a selection of licks. Which makes sense because trying to coordinate LH and RH is challenge enough!
PianoTell's darling, Christian Fuchs, also has a nice demonstration of Dr. John Style piano. If I have time, I may go through that one as well. The left hand approach doesn't have the latin feeling, but it definitely still sounds like New Orleans. His blues is in F, which is very convenient if I pick that key!
